This invention relates in general to the manufacture and assembly of vehicle frame components and in particular to a method and apparatus for manufacturing vehicle frame components using composite fiber pultrusion techniques.
Virtually all land vehicles in common use, such as automobiles and trucks, include a frame which serves as a platform upon which the remainder of the vehicle is built. Many vehicle frame structures are known in the art. Most of these known vehicle frame structures are formed from a number of individual metallic components which are permanently joined together. For example, a typical vehicle frame is composed of a pair of longitudinally extending side rails which are joined together by a plurality of transversely extending cross members. In shorter length vehicles, the side rails can be formed from a single piece of metal. In longer vehicles, however, each of the side rails is usually formed from two or more side rail sections which are permanently joined together. In either event, the side rails and cross members, once joined together, form a frame for supporting the remaining portions of the vehicle thereon. To facilitate the attachment of the other portions of the vehicle to the vehicle frame, a variety of brackets, hangers, cradles, and the like are often joined to the side rails and cross members at desired locations. It is common practice to also form these supporting hardware components from metallic materials, and further to permanently join them to the side rails and cross members at desired locations. Conventional welding techniques have been commonly used to permanently join the various components of the vehicle frame together.
Although the use of metallic materials to form vehicle frame components and the process of welding such metallic vehicle frame components together have been performed with satisfactory results in the past, some drawbacks thereto have been noted. First, traditional metallic materials which have been used in the past, such as steel, are relatively heavy and, therefore, contribute undesirably to the overall weight of the vehicle. Second, conventional welding techniques involve the application of heat to localized areas of the two metallic frame members, which can cause undesirable weaknesses to be introduced into the metallic components. Although the use of non-traditional, lighter weight metallic materials, such as aluminum, has been proposed, such use presents other challenges, including increased cost and difficulty in permanent joinder. Inasmuch as the production of vehicle frames is usually an high volume, low margin process, it would be desirable to provide an improved method and apparatus for manufacturing vehicle frame components which avoids these problems.